Best quotes by Jay-Z

I love you so, But why I love you, I'll never know.

In the end, you can't censor the truth, especially when it comes packaged in hot music.

Gotta keep it peace like a buddhist Nobody gonna Wesley snipe me It's less than likely, Move back, Let I breathe Jedi knight, The more space I get the better I write, (Oh) Never I write, but, if, ever I write, I need the space to say whatever I like.

You shared one of the most intimate things that ever happened to you - falling in love with someone who wasn't brave enough to love you back. Your relieving yourself of your 'secret' is as much about wanting to honestly connect as it is about exhibition. We are all made better by your decision to share publicly.

You put the right artist on the right track in the studio and leave the door open to let God in.

I don't even like the word politics. It implies something underhanded and I think we need less government.

The average rap life is two or three albums. You're lucky to get to your second album in rap!

You know the type: loud as a motorbike but wouldn't bust a grape in a fruit fight.

Hip-hop gave a generation a common ground that didn't require either race to lose anything; everyone gained.

I was forced to be an artist and a CEO from the beginning, so I was forced to be like a businessman because when I was trying to get a record deal, it was so hard to get a record deal on my own that it was either give up or create my own company.

I think Lil Wayne is extremely talented. I think he's one of the most talented ones out there.

Everyone who makes music is a good collaborator at their foundation because in order to make music, you have to connect to it in a way that other people can't.

Stop screamin', you know the demon said it's best to die, And even if Jehovah witness, bet he'll never testify, D'Evils.

It was a weird mix of emotions. One day, your best friend could be killed. The day before, you could be celebrating him getting a brand-new bike.

How could I be out there and not do anything?

I would run into the corner store, the bodega, and just grab a paper bag or buy juice - anything just to get a paper bag. And I'd write the words on the paper bag and stuff these ideas in my pocket until I got back. Then I would transfer them into the notebook.

I'm not saying I'm God. But as far as lyrics, I'm God MC.

Hip-hop is more about attaining wealth. People respect success. They respect big. They don't even have to like your music. If you're big enough, people are drawn to you.

When I come back like Jordan, wearing the 4-5. It ain't to play games with you, it's to aim at you, probably maim you. If I owe you I'm blowin' you to smithereens.

If the beat is time, flow is what we do with that time, how we live through it. The beat is everywhere, but every life has to find its own flow.

I couldn't even think about wanting to be something else; I wouldn't let myself visualize another life. But I wrote because I couldn't stop. It was a release, a mental exercise, a way of keeping sane.

No matter where you go you are what you are player and you can try to change but that's just the top layer man you was who you was before you got here

You could name practically any problem in the hood and there'd be a rap song for you.

We'll have a baby who stutters repeatedly We'll name him history

Rap has been a path between cultures in the best tradition of popular music.

They say a midget standing on a giant's shoulders can see much further than the giant. So I got the whole rap world on my shoulders, they trying to see further than I am.

A poet's mission is to make words do more work than they normally do, to make them work on more than one level.

I thought I would be more inspired to have all these new feelings to talk about, but I really just want to hang out with my daughter.

[T]he truth is that drug addicts have a disease. It only takes a short time in the streets to realize that out-of-control addiction is a medical problem, not a form of recreational or criminal behavior. And the more society treats drug addiction as a crime, the more money drug dealers will make "relieving" the suffering of the addicts.

Used to rock a throwback ballin on the corner, now I rock tailored suit lookin' like a owner.

Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther King could walk. Martin Luther King walked so Obama could run. Obama's running so we all can fly.

Artists can have greater access to reality; they can see patterns and details and connections that other people, distracted by the blur of life, might miss. Just sharing that truth can be a very powerful thing.

[T]he truth is you don't need some external demon to take control of you to turn you into a raging, money-obsessed sociopath, you only need to let loose the demons you already have inside of you.

My life after childhood has two main stories: the story of the hustler and the story of the rapper, and the two overlap as much as they diverge. I was on the streets for more than half of my life from the time I was thirteen years old. People sometimes say that now I'm so far away from that life - now that I've got businesses and Grammys and magazine covers - that I have no right to rap about it. But how distant is the story of your own life ever going to be? The feelings I had during that part of my life were burned into me like a brand. It was life during wartime.

Hip-hop has done so much for racial relations, and I don't think it's given the proper credit. It has changed America immensely. I'm going to make a very bold statement: Hip-hop has done more than any leader, politician, or anyone to improve race relations.

I am not a businessman. I am a business, man.

When you're growing up, your dad is your superhero. Once you've let yourself fall that in love with someone, once you put him on such a high pedestal and he lets you down, you never want to experience that pain again.

Boxing is a glorious sport to watch and boxers are incredible, heroic athletes, but it's also, to be honest, a stupid game to play. Even the winners can end up with crippling brain damage. In a lot of ways, hustling is the same. But you learn something special from playing the most difficult games, the games where winning is close to impossible and losing is catastrophic: You learn how to compete as if your life depended on it. That's the lesson I brought with me to the so-called "legitimate" world.

If I don't show the world growth, how are we going to grow?

I'm trying to tell the story in the most clear, concise, and truthful way, taking those everyday words and phrases and capturing them in a way that they become something else.

I wrote this [Most Kings] before MJ died, and his death only proves my point: When he was alive, the King of Pop, people were tireless in taking him down, accepting as truth every accusation people made against him, assuming the worst until they drove him away. When he died, suddenly he was beloved again - people realized that the charges against him might really have been bogus, and that the skin lightening was really caused by a disease, and that his weirdness was part of his artistry. But when he was alive and on top, they couldn't wait to bring him down.

My tears is tatted, my rag in my pocket / Im just looking for love, I know somebody got it

Wherever I go, I bring the culture with me, so that they can understand that it's attainable. I didn't do it any other way than through hip-hop.

Is to have had and lost/Better than not having at all?

Treat my first like my last and the last like my first and my thirst is the same as- when I came.

I use a lot of double meanings. I hide 'em like Easter eggs.

Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be And so I put this on my life Nobody or nothing will ever come between us And I promise I'll give my life

Now success was like lust, she's good to the touch, She's good for the moment, but she's never enough

I believe excellence is being able to perform at a high level over and over.

I like a girl who spend a little cash for her shoes.

I'm far from being god, but I work god damn hard.

just when i thought i had everything, i lost it all

Far from a Harvard student, just had the balls to do it

It's hilarious a lot of times. You have a conversation with someone, and he's like, 'You speak so well!' I'm like, 'What do you mean? Do you understand that's an insult?

I ain't lookin' at you dudes -I'm lookin' past you.

We were kids without fathers, so we found our fathers on wax and on the streets and in history, and in a way, that was a gift. We got to pick and choose the ancestors who would inspire the world we were going to make for ourselves.

My thing is related to who I am as a person. The clothes are an extension of me. The music is an extension of me. All my businesses are part of the culture, so I have to stay true to whatever I'm feeling at the time, whatever direction I'm heading in. And hopefully, everyone follows.

Screamin' 'Carpe Diem!' until I'm a Dead Poet.

You ain't gotta go to church to find your God.

I'm hungry for knowledge. The whole thing is to learn every day, to get brighter and brighter. That's what this world is about. You look at someone like Gandhi, and he glowed. Martin Luther King glowed. Muhammad Ali glows. I think that's from being bright all the time, and trying to be brighter.

Your future is ahead of you. Imagine the notion of the past fifteen years of your life being a blip in your story.

It's always been most important for me to figure out "my space" rather than trying to check out what everyone else is up to, minute by minute. Technology is making it easier to connect to other people, but maybe harder to keep connected to yourself-- and that's essential for any artist, I think.

Everything evens up, you just wait, Even a garbage can gets a steak, You ain't even a garbage can, you have faith!

I'm not afraid of dying I'm afraid of not trying

Their gunnin' for me, want to see me fall, you know my story, been through it all, times I felt like dyin', but I ain't cryin', what didn't kill me, makes me strong as iron.

I will not lose, for even in defeat/There's a valuable lesson learned, so it evens up for me

We change people through conversation, not through censorship.

Difficult takes a day Impossible takes a week I do this in my sleep

As kids we didn't complain about being poor; we talked about how rich we were going to be and made moves to get the lifestyle we aspired to by any means we could. And as soon as we had a little money, we were eager to show it.

No matter where you go, you are what you are playa.

Life is for living, not living uptight, see ya somewhere up in the sky.

Everyone needs a chance to evolve.

In trouble waters I had to learn how to float

Only God can judge me so I'm gone, either love me or leave me alone.

You can want success all you want, but to get it, you can’t falter. You can’t slip. You can’t sleep. One eye open, for real, and forever.